Papermaking and printing, compass and gunpowder are four great inventions in ancient China, and they are one of the symbols that China has become an ancient civilization. It was a period when China made great progress in science and technology. During this period, several great inventions such as compass, printing and gunpowder were widely used and spread. The earliest form of compass is called Sina. Around the 3rd century A.D., after the brand-new version of "Three Guests and All Clothes", China people discovered the characteristics that magnets can attract iron, and at the same time discovered the directionality of magnets, and made Sina based on this characteristic. At the latest in the 9th century AD, China used the compass for land survey in ancient times, and Yin and Yang scholars also widely used the compass to observe geomantic omen. Officials often use compasses when surveying fields and judging land lawsuits. About 10 century, in the Northern Song Dynasty, people in China used a compass to navigate. This has played a great role in developing maritime traffic and economic and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. There is a saying in the Pingzhou Tan written by Zhu119 in the Northern Song Dynasty: There are hundreds of boats and boats in Jialing River. The boatman knows geography. He looks at the stars at night, the sun during the day and the compass at night. When translating this passage, some foreign scholars mistranslated the name of Jia Lingcheng, the Arabian captain who traveled to and from the sea. So they made mistakes again and again and came to the wrong conclusion that the first ships equipped with compasses were not China ships, but Arab ships. In fact, in the Middle Ages, Arab ships were too small to hold more than 100 people. At that time, among the merchant ships between the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, only China could accommodate hundreds of people, and even Arab businessmen often took China ships. Maritime trade between Song Dynasty and Arabia was very frequent. Large fleets from China to Arabia have compass navigation, and Arabs can easily learn how to use the compass from China merchant ships. Scholars in ancient Greece and Rome have long known that magnets can attract iron, but they have not known the directivity of magnets for a long time. When Europeans finally understood and mastered this natural phenomenon, they were more than 1000 years behind China. The compass navigation with magnet is more than 300 years behind China, and the artificial magnet navigation is more than 0/00 years behind China. It is worth noting that the navigation compass used by early Europeans is the same as that of China, and the manufacturing method is almost the same as that of China. This series of convergence phenomena can only be explained by the spread of technology. /kloc-Before the first half of the 3rd century, Europeans were still imitating China's compass in the Song Dynasty. At this time, Europeans did not achieve much in theory or practice, nor did they surpass the application level of China's compass in Song Dynasty. /kloc-in the second half of the third century, the European compass began to be localized through the research of French experimental physicist Pierre. With China, when the American drought compass was introduced to Europe, the French improved it and put it in a glass container to become a portable instrument. Later, this convenient compass was widely used by sailors all over Europe. Before there was a compass, navigation could only calculate the approximate position by watching the stars. After the compass appeared, sailors can not only determine the position, but sometimes even calculate the mileage between the two places. Since then, ocean-going fleets of various countries have walked safely between the vast sea and the sky according to the routes, courses and miles recorded and measured by charts and compasses. The application of compass in navigation made it possible for Columbus to discover the new continent of America and Magellan to sail around the world. This has greatly accelerated the development of the world economy and provided an indispensable prerequisite for the development of capitalism. Due to the continuous wars with Liao and Jin, the tribute trade between North Korea and China was affected. The closed-door policy of Japanese Fujiwara shogunate and the United States led to the introduction of compasses and gunpowder from China and the United States into these two neighboring countries, which were far behind Europe, and formed a sharp contrast with the development of Pakistan.
It is often the case in history that a scientific invention will appear very skillfully as long as it is urgently needed by society and has the material conditions for production. This is the emergence of block printing. Before block printing appeared, seals and monuments were widely used in society. There are two kinds of seals: Yang Wen and Wen Yin. The words carved by Yang Wen are convex, while those carved by Wen Yin are concave. If Yang Wen seal is used, it will be printed on black paper with white characters on a white background, which is very eye-catching. However, seals are generally small and the number of words printed is limited. Inscriptions are generally used on tablets, but white characters on a black background are not eye-catching. Moreover, the rubbing process is complicated and it is not convenient to print books. But rubbings have a great advantage, that is, the area of stone tablets is relatively large, and many words can be rubbings at a time. What if we learn from each other? Combine the characteristics of flat plate and seal? Of course, the situation is different. In ancient China, the working people invented block printing under the inspiration of rubbings and seal cutting. The method of block printing is to saw the wood into pieces, write the words to be printed on thin paper, and then stick them on the wood. Then according to the strokes of each word, the orthography is carved one by one with a knife, so that the strokes of each word stand out on the board. After the board is carved, you can print books. When printing books, dip the brush in ink and brush it on the engraving. Then, cover with white paper and gently brush it on the back of the paper with a clean brush. Take off the paper and a page of the book will be printed. After the pages are printed and bound, a book is finished. This printing method is to engrave good words on the board before printing, so we call it block printing. At the end of Sui Dynasty and the beginning of Tang Dynasty, the large-scale peasant uprising promoted the development of social production and the vigorous development of cultural undertakings, which objectively produced an urgent demand for block printing. When it comes to printing books, block printing is really a great creation. A book can be printed only by carving a board once, which is many times faster than handwriting. However, in this way, printing a book requires a lot of labor, and it is impossible to print a large number of books quickly. Some books are too many words, and it often takes many years to finish engraving. Once a book is printed, it won't be reprinted, so engraving is completely useless. What can be done to improve it? During the Li Qing period in Song Renzong, an inventor named Bi Sheng finally invented a more progressive printing method-movable type printing, which greatly improved the printing technology in China. Bi Sheng clay is used to make square columns. One side is carved with a word, and then it is burned hard. When printing a book with movable type, first prepare an iron plate, put rosin and wax on it, and enclose it with an iron frame. The iron frame is densely packed with movable type, and then baked with fire under the iron plate to melt the rosin and wax. Press another tablet on the arranged movable type to flatten the movable type, and a movable type version will be arranged. Like lettering, you can print as long as the words are inked.